Nelson Bridge Club, Nelson, New Zealand

Nelson Bridge Club

Everyone is Welcome. Established in 1954.

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Release 2.19r

The Club is located at 21 Haven Road, Nelson, New Zealand.

Our phone number is +64 3 548 1999 .

For more Information click Where and When we play

Bridge is the best card game there is!

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Bridge is a game about skills.

It doesn't matter what cards you get, it is about how well you play them.

You play against other people who have the same cards. The one who makes the most tricks with these cards wins.

Introducing Lindsey Guy

Lindsey is a Silver Grand Master: a bridge player who has accumulated more than 2500 A and B points. She has been playing bridge since 1972, mostly with her life partner Steve Gray who she eyed over the bridge table all those years ago. The Bridge Club is ‘the place to meet the love of your life’.

What would you say to someone who asked you ‘why play bridge?’

Because it is the most fabulous card game you can play. You meet interesting people and it keeps your brain active. I like being competitive.

It is important to be nice and helpful to junior players. Remember how scared you were when you first started:

One club.

Pass

Two Clubs

Me: do you have a four card major?

Yes.

Me: then bid it.

But its only got 4 wee spades

Me: Doesn’t matter, still bid it, it’s more helpful to your partner

How did your bridge career start?

I married into a card playing family. My husband, Jim Murray and his father were two of the top bridge players in the Northeast of Scotland. At the age of 23 Jim and I came to Huntly, New Zealand as young teachers.

Jim gave me some basic bridge lessons and then we went off to the Huntly Bridge Club. After the school day, we would come home and he would teach me some more. I remember him teaching me how to finesse. We started playing in tournaments after that.

We moved to Blenheim in 1981 and that’s when I met Steve. He and I moved to Wellington together. We won our first A point by winning a session at the Hutt Open in 1981. Our second A point was 18 years later in 1999. We then went to our first Congress in 2000 and won 3 more. In those days inexperienced players only won an A point in the Teams event and only if you beat a team by 25/0. We beat a top Wellington team and were stoked.

It wasn’t until we started playing with Rod Dravitzki and his wife Sandy that our bridge really started to improve. They first taught us five card majors and then we progressed to Precision. They mentored us for many years and played with us in Team tournaments. We learnt a lot and we had lots of fun.

Can you describe a bridge highlight?

We used to be regular attendees at the Gold Coast Bridge Congress and back in 2011 we won the Seres McMahon Trophy in a mixed team’s event. A more recent second highlight was becoming Silver Grand Master last year, that felt really special.

Apart from competing at the table what else have you done for your bridge club?

For years I was on the Nelson Bridge Committee. I took the role of the secretary for the Match Committee responsible for competitive play and tournaments, and I am still on that committee. I organise the Teams event and the Swiss Pairs for the Nelson Club and I am a Club Director for the Richmond Club. I enjoy having the naming rights to the Swiss Pairs Cup for Nelson. I loved introducing Nelson to Swiss Pairs. I do the organizing and Steve does the scoring.

What are some bridge tips you would give an aspiring bridge player?

Find a mentor. Rather than ask to play with someone better than you, find a partner you enjoy and want to improve with, get a system sorted and then ask a senior player to mentor you as a pair.

Find a system that you and your partner can learn which will help you to converse over the table. Learn how to ‘signal’ to your partner, have a clear discard system, work out what your leads are and what they mean. Bridge is a partnership. Go over the hands the next day and discuss what needs improving. Do not play the blame game.

Use the digital bridge world to your advantage.

Keep track of the suits that matter. The trick to bridge is counting the cards. Trumps are important but the second suit is also very important. You may have to lose a trick in the side suit before cashing trumps. In No Trumps, lose your losers first.

Always enjoy your Bridge.

You can play bridge almost every day of the week in Nelson. ‘I love the Top of the South bridge tournaments. It’s like one big family’.

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What makes bridge such a popular game?

220 million people play bridge, all over the world. Fans of bridge are e.g. James Bond, Radiohead, Martina Navratilova, Bill Gates and Omar Sharif.

Bridge is social

Meet new people and make new friends at bridge. Nelson Bridge club has over 230 members, young and old, all ages. There are always some people that you are going to like a lot.

During the year you often play with different partners and so you get to know a lot of people.

Bridge is fun and exciting

Bridge is challenging for the brain like chess, it has the suspense of poker and the competitiveness of a sports game. Bridge has it all.

With contract bridge you play against the other players who have the same cards. This makes it a very exciting game.

Can you find the best bid with your partner?

Can you play the cards as best as you can?

It takes 10 lessons and you can play bridge, but after that you keep on learning.

People who play for 30 years say that they still learn new things and that the game is never boring.

Bridge is an addictive game. You often end up looking forward to the next time to play bridge. Hoping that you can do better this time....

Fitness for the brain

Bridge is a very good mental workout. You have to use your memory, logical thinking and calculation, concentration, communication and problem solving skills.

Bridge stimulates both sides of your brain. That makes it unique.

Health benefits

Bridge not only keeps you brain active, but it is also a boost for your immune system. By playing bridge you produce a higher number of white blood cells.

People who play bridge regularly also have 2.5 times less change to develop Alzheimer's disease.

Good value for money

Play three hours of bridge for only 8 dollars. That's the same as the cost of a cup of coffee!

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220 million people play bridge, all over the world. Fans of bridge are e.g. ..........

Bridge is a card game for four players, two against two

♠ ♥ ♦ ♣

Bridge is a card game for four players, two against two. They use one pack of cards at a time and the pack contains fifty-two cards. Each player is dealt 13 cards, face down.

It is a trick taking game – namely four cards in each of 13 tricks – and thus has similarities with Whist, Oh Hell!, and Five Hundred. The last of these (“500”) is the closest game to bridge, and expert exponents of 500 will find that they have a lot more opportunity to exercise their skills when playing bridge.

The game of bridge is often referred to as Contract Bridge to distinguish it from its predecessor Auction Bridge. This was necessary in the early days of Contract (the 1930s) but today it would be difficult to find anyone who knows the rules of Auction let alone wants to play it.

Bridge can be played at many levels, and there is no reason why people cannot play it for pleasure despite the vast number of systems for bidding and play which have been devised. Basically bridge requires little more than an understanding of how to value a hand and some feel for how the cards should be played. At this level a player cannot hope to compete with the full-time professionals of the game, but how many weekend golfers would want to go head-to-head with Tiger Woods?

The pack of 52 cards comprises four suits in the order of Ace (high), King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 (lowest). For bidding, the suits are also given ranks with No Trumps being higher than spades, which is followed by hearts, diamonds and clubs in that order. This ranking of suits does not apply once the bidding is finished.

When the bidding is finished, the highest bidder, or “winner of the auction,” becomes what is known as the declarer and this player’s partner puts all their cards face up on the table. This player, commonly referred to as “dummy,” now takes no further part in the play. The two other players both continue to hold their cards and are known as defenders. Once the “dummy” is “tabled,” all three remaining players can see exactly half of the cards that were dealt. For each trick, any trump card will out-rank any non-trump but all players must follow suit to the leader of a trick for as long as they are able to do so.

Bridge is a partnership game such that a world champion may not be able to shine in an average field of players if their partner is completely hopeless. Skill plays a major part in the results of any bridge tournament but luck is also a factor. Furthermore on any particular deal of the game a “couple of beginners” could, can and have been known to get the better of a “pair of world champions.” This is unlike the chances of a weekend golfer ever being able to beat the Tiger on any hole!

Bridge is a game about which no one can ever say “I’ve got it mastered.” In fact, the undisputed best player in the world over the last 30 or 40 years – an American by name of Bob Hamman – has been quoted as saying: “Keep this in mind: if you keep playing bridge, you’re going to look like a fool a certain percentage of the time – count on it!”

Both humbling and enabling, and occasionally a glimpse of beauty beyond anything you could imagine . . .

Bridge is a game that can be played at any age. The majority of regular bridge players are past ‘retirement age’ it is true, but those who learn the game young, never forget it and never lose it. That a man aged 89 can become a World Champion, as happened in bridge in 1998, demonstrates that the game is ageless and a player can keep enjoying it for a longer period than any other human pastime.

. . . when all else fails – sport, love, ambition – bridge remains a solace and an entertainment wrote W Somerset Maugham, which, coming from him, is praise indeed.

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♠ ♥ ♦ ♣

Bridge is a card game for four players, two against two. They use one pack of cards at a time and the pack contains fifty-two cards. Each player is dealt 13 cards, face down. ..........